Angela says, “What is he talking about?”
I shush her with my finger as Hal continues, “ . . . and Jack?”
Yeah?
“ . . . they found a body.”
I'll be in as quick as I can. Do the others—
“They've already been alerted.”
I ended the call and slid the phone down into my pocket. Suddenly, everything seemed less important. As much as I like Angela, there are more pressing issues. If I lose her, then it was probably going to happen no matter what I told her.
I look at her, and I have no way to say the things I would like to, nor do I have the time to explain them properly.
“Angela, I like you a lot. More than any other girl, ever. But I have to go right now. There are children dying in South America and, well . . . I have to try and help them. I know you don't believe me, and I wouldn't either, but . . . I have to save the world.” I shrug, “Nobody else is going to do it.”
And she stands up, just looking at me. She's probably trying to figure out how many drugs I'm on. She's studying psychology, so I know she's full of textbook theories right about now. The look on her face speaks volumes. Instead of long walks on the beach, she's probably picturing long sessions of electro-shock therapy. Instead of sipping fruity drinks while the sun sets, I'll be slobbering incoherently while they recharge the batteries.
But I don't have time to make all this right. And at the moment I'm about to give up she grabs me on the collars of my $260 shirt and pulls me to her. We're so close we're no longer two different people.
And we kiss. Like, a for real kiss. Her thin lips on mine. One of those deeply passionate kisses that leaves you dizzy and wondering what just happened. It lasts just long enough that I wish it could go on forever.
And as she backs her lips from mine she smiles for the first time since I can remember. “I like you, too, Jack Pagan.”
Even if I'm a brain-broken lunatic? I ask her.
She reaches her little index finger up and pushes lightly on my nose, like it's a button. Then she grabs my hand, turns, and we head to her car. And, even though we haven't said it officially, I know she's my girlfriend. Because, let's face it, nobody in their right mind would stay with a guy like me if she wasn't.
46
ALG office.
5:18 pm . . .
There are maps on almost every screen in the office. Ms. Josephine and Ricky are pouring through almanac information, facts and figures, looking for anything they can find on Cotopaxi, Ecuador. Billtruck is engaged in a conversation with Hal, trying to discern exactly where the child's body was discovered.
What was the cause of death? I ask as I approach Billtruck.
He turns to the computer, “Hal?”
“ . . . Maria Eduardo-Mendez Gonzalez, age six at time of death, died due to massive ex-sanguination through several wounds to her inner arms through the right and left AC (Anterior Carpi) arteries, as well as through the femoral arteries of both the left and right legs, over a period of weeks. It has not been ascertained whether the loss of blood was due to animal attack, but the injuries are consistent with Desmodus rotundus attacks.”
What is Desmodus rotunda-whatever? I ask.
Billtruck takes a deep breath, “Well, it would be any of the three species of blood-eating bats, native to tropical as well as subtropic environments. They are classified as sanguivorous (blood-eating) animals. But there's a hitch . . . ”
I look back and forth between Billtruck and the myriad computers waiting for an explanation. “What's the hitch?”
“ . . . the bite marks are much too large to be delivered by the common vampire bats, which typically range from seven to nine centimeters, with a weight of between fifty to one-hundred grams. This is a two-to-four ounce animal,” Hal answers.
So, what . . . a giant bat? That's a National Geographic kind of thing, not a twenty-three Evils thing.
“There's more,” Billtruck says as he clears his throat. “Hal, can you tell us the curious circumstances behind the bite marks?”
“ . . . Vampire bats use a razor sharp incision, followed by the administration of a very potent anticoagulant, presented by their saliva. This keeps the blood from clotting. They carry any number of transmittable diseases such as rabies. A simple precipitin test, performed by the medical staff in Cotopaxi, where the body was examined, found negative results.”
I don't know what that is. What is a precipitin test?
“Human blood can be differentiated from the blood of other species by the precipitin test, which involves the reaction between blood and antihuman rabbit serum.”
I raise my hands in surrender. “Alright, they tested to make sure it's animal . . . and?”
“ . . . the results of the precipitin tests concluded that the creature that attacked this girl was not animal in origin. It was composed of distinctly human blood factors, including but not limited to histocompatibility antigens, blood enzymes, and serum proteins. Whatever attacked this child, was human. At least at some point along the evolutionary scale.”
Wait, wait, wait, I said. Hold on.
But Hal didn't wait, wait, wait. “ . . . what is rather perplexing to all investigating these results is that the bruising around the girls wounds was substantial and radiating several inches from the incisions. The bite marks are somewhat similar with human incisors. It is concluded that she was exsanguinated over a period of several days, possibly as many as nine.”
“Dey fed off dat child,” Ms. Josephine said, her face very disturbed, her eyes distant. She can empathize in a way that most of us can barely imagine. “Dey kept 'er alive and dey drained 'er slowly. Until 'er body couldn't keep up wit da demand.”
Ricky nodded, “Yeah, and they're probably feeding off of all those other kids, too.”
I wondered aloud, “Isn't there a disease where people need blood for, like, certain proteins or something? It seems like I remember seeing that on Discovery .”
“I've been doing a bit of research on that very thing,” Billtruck said. “And your answer is, strangely, yes . The basic idea is that they consume blood because their body doesn't produce any one of the important constituents in blood. There are cases where their blood doesn't produce sufficient amounts of red blood cells, others where the deficit is blood plasma, then there are deficits in . . . ”
Deficits? Deficits. That's what Uriel said.
“Excuse me,” Billtruck said, looking up at me. “Who?”
Oh, uh, a friend of mine, the angel guy. He told me that the twenty-three Evils would have great strengths, but also weaknesses that could be exploited. A deficit of some kind. So maybe their bodies are deficient in some of these blood ingredients.”
“A new species?” Ricky pondered.
I'm not sure. Maybe it's something on a smaller level. Since their souls are literally invading this planet, it stands to reason that they might be like any other disease or virus. Maybe we're confusing cause and effect.
“Holy, shit, Jack!” Ricky said, catching Ms. Josephine's scolding glare. “That is the first coherent investigative theory you've ever had.”
I'd take a bow and milk this if there weren't kids being fed upon.
Billtruck doesn't look convinced, “That's a maybe. But what if it's more like phoresy , where there's a transportation of one organism by another, by a more mobile one. Suppose these souls need to move about, you know, jumping here and there. Blood might not be a bad way to travel.”
We're all quiet, now, considering just how demented and scary this is all becoming.
“Give me an example,” Ricky says, trying to work it out in his mind.
Hal answers, “ . . . feather lice accomplish phoresy by hanging onto the body hairs of certain blood-consuming flies. It occurs in the many and varied parasitic colonies as well.”
“Any other ideas?” Billtruck says, still unsettled about this.
“What about an arbovirus ?” Ricky posits.
Hal takes his cue, “ . . .
derived from arthropodborne virus , a group of viruses that develop in arthropods (mainly blood-sucking mosquitoes and ticks), in which they cause no apparent harm, and are subsequently transmitted by bites to vertebrate hosts, in which they establish infections and complete their growth cycle. As quoted in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.”
So, I say, this could be just a delivery system for the souls. It's their form of transport.
“We go to da airport,” Ms. Josephine says eerily, “ . . . and evil 'eads for your blood.”
Billtruck picks up a piece of printed paper, “The anonymous voice, he seems pretty convinced that the first victim had a rare blood type. So convinced they sent a sample back to the Vatican.”
Have they analysed it, yet?
Billtruck shook his head, No.
“So we're still looking at blood as a means of transfer and travel.”
If they traveled in blood, wouldn't that make them susceptible to all of the same pitfalls of being whatever their host is? You're inside a bird,the bird flies into a window . . . you know. That's a lot of risk.
“So is walking your dog at night, but we still do it,” Billtruck said. “These creatures are going to be limited by their circumstances. They're suddenly back on earth, and they'll do anything to stay here, no matter what the rules are. They'll just adapt and maximize their potential. Like any new species, they will specialize within their niche until they control it, or outgrow it. This is evolution all over again. And right now, they have invaded a new niche, and selective pressure is on their side.”
Hal, what does that mean in terms of violence?
There was a moment where he didn't answer, then, “ . . . based on the time parameters that these creatures have been here, there is an approximate window of twenty-five to forty days depending on inclement weather and climate conditions to maintain control of the invading species before it dominates it's niche, pushing the other species away.”
And what is its niche? I ask. What species would be eradicated? I mean, am I going completely nutbag crazy, or are we going to a jungle to hunt vampires?
We all look at each other, but nobody is laughing.
25 days to save the world. Great.
47
ALG office.
6:13 pm . . .
I look across the office at my team. Billtruck, in his white lab coat, with his bulging arms and barrel chest—he's contemplative, considering our mission. Probably pondering the nuances of Dracula's historical underpinnings.
Ricky, the unassuming genius, future medicine man, and the closest thing to a brother I've ever known—he's biting on his bottom lip as he makes plans.
Ms. Josephine, with the eyes of the blind, a heart so big and full of empathy that it's hard to even imagine the things she hears—she's sitting in a rolling chair by the red phone waiting for somebody to call her in need.
And then there's me, dressed for a funeral that I saw way before it actually happened. I'm pacing slowly between them all. Thinking of what to say next. Although none of them put it into words, they're all waiting for me to make a decision. Ricky, Billtruck, Ms. Josephine, and even our computer, they're all leaps and bounds smarter than me. But I'm the one who talks to angels.
We're all regular people trying to solve impossible, unnatural problems for other regular people. A bunch of blind kids at a birthday party swinging golf clubs at a piñata. No matter how hard we try, somebody just has to get hurt in the process.
I'm the guy who can die and walk among the dead.
The idiot I see in the mirror, it's the moron who let caged evil pour back onto the earth.
So, I guess I'm the goto guy on decisions like this.
“Ricky,” I say, “how long would it take to prep for a trip to Ecuador?”
His cheeks puff out as he does calculations in his mind, “A day, give or take. I'll file a flight plan, get the plane ready, assemble our gear. Two days, tops.”
I nod, turning to Billtruck, “What do we need to hunt these blood-sucking bastards?”
He taps his fingers on the side of the keyboard in front of him, “Full surveillance kit, night vision, thermal imager. I'll need to find a satellite that I can get space on. Need realtime strip mapping and overwatch capability.” And then he turns and looks over at Ms. Josephine, “ . . . and you'll need her, of course.”
I look into her honey brown eyes full of mystery and secrets that only the jungles will ever know. Her strange eyes, with the glittering remnants of a girl who couldn't even see until she was 10. “You feel like another vacation, Ms. Josephine?”
“I 'aven't been to South America in years,” she said with a smile.
You can be easily fooled by this short, kind looking woman, with her round face and soft disposition. At a glance you'd just see the most caring, thoughtful woman in the world. But there's another side to her. The one that takes over when her eyes close. When the lost souls cross the darkness to plead for her help. And there is a very powerful sorceress in there, behind that wonderful smile and delicate voice.
She knows things.
Dangerous and scary things.
“I'll get Hal up to speed on what kind of data tracking and peripheral assistance we'll be providing,” Billtruck says. And then his shoulders drop a few inches as he sighs to himself, “ . . . almost wish I was coming with you guys.”
You're our secret weapon, I tell him. Besides, you'll be in our ears the entire time.
He nods.
Ricky claps suddenly, one loud time, “ Alright , then!” He walks over to me, taking Ms. Josephine by the hand. “We all know what needs to be done. So let's rock and roll.”
We all gather in the center of the office, like a huddle, information streaming by on screens all around us. I say to them, “Look, if there's any personal stuff you need to take care of, I think we need to get it resolved by tonight. We're kind of on a tight schedule.”
We all nod, then slowly everyone goes in their separate directions. I finish up some things I was working on at one of the workstations and then head over to where Ms. Josephine is shuffling through some papers. She's at the corner of the office where she can look down into the interior of the building, at the little food court where people are chatting each other up.
She doesn't even turn around, she just says, “What's on your mind, Jack?”
You freak me out when you do that.
She laughs quietly to herself. “After all da crazy tings you've seen, 'ow come Ms. Josephine scares you?” But she's asking another one of her rhetorical questions. She's thought provoking, I'll give her that.
She turns and looks at me, grabbing my wrists as she pulls them towards her. “You got dat girl on your mind.”
How do you do that? I ask with a grin.
She shrugs, placing my palms together, “Don't take no psychic to see dat, child. You really like dis girl. It's written all over you.”
I shuffle my feet a bit, “I have a favor to ask.”
“Is it about dat girl of yours?”
It is about her, I say . . . but not exactly. I have to do something.
“I'm listenin' . . . ”
48
The Loft.
9:23 pm . . .
Ricky just jabbed a cold needle into my wrist. It looks to be about the size of a length of garden hose, and just as wide. I'm going to be on 500 milliliters of normal saline, to keep my body from dropping temperature so dramatically. We've tried this in the past, and all the saline did was help me when I returned from Deadside, but Ricky still says we need to be plugged-in. Plugged-in means big-ass needle in your wrist.
I'm on my bed, surrounded by the team. Ms. Josephine is sitting on my right, Ricky on my left. Billtruck has just fitted an experimental device around my head.
“It's an fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imager) that maps and measures your brainwave activity. It's only in the early stages of testing and trials,” Billtruck says as he leans in, pressing the pads on the side so they are making clean contact with
my head.
The theory is that when I cross over, my brain should be doing all manner of exciting, marvelous things. The fMRI will attempt to capture that. We won't be able to look at it in real time, or anything like that, but we'll be able to study the data later, with Hal's help, of course. We may be able to show physical proof that what's going on in my head somehow links to what's going on in the Land of Sorrows.
Plus, I think Billtruck just wants some proof that I'm not an insane lunatic. If he could just give himself one tiny little piece of evidence, no matter how thin, he'd be a changed man. I like that he's rather skeptical of all this. It keeps the rest of us honest. He's like Special Agent Scully on the X-Files , and the rest of us are the various faces of Fox Mulder .
Anyway, I've agreed to be a part of the experiment if they're a part of my trip across to the Land of Sorrows. The reason I'm going is a bit more complicated. You see, after this whole affair with Jesse Taylor—me seeing her surrounded by spooks, me hearing about her collapse, me seeing her being ripped apart by gatherers, and then me bumbling around that funeral with Angela—it's all just left me feeling like I owe them both something.
I got myself into all of this when I opened my big mouth at the book store. Everything since then has been damage control. I shouldn't have ever said anything. Who am I to play savior? But once I did, I owe it to Jesse and Angela to do what I can to make it right.
So what I am going to try to do, with Ms. Josephine's help, is to find Jesse. I want to talk to her and explain what's going on. Tell her what to look out for. I don't know if that will make a difference, but I think she needs to know that somebody cares about her.
Now, I haven't mentioned any of this to Angela because things are tense enough without telling her that I'm going to hike on over to the place between dogs and wolves and try to use my cathartic prowess to calm her dead friend.
That might be misinterpreted as slightly intruding.
What I did do was call Angela a little while ago and ask her, delicately, if Jesse had a special place she liked to go. Angela couldn't remember anything that stuck out, so I have decided to have a look around, and ask the first Deadsider that I see to point me in the right direction.
See Jack Hunt (See Jack Die) Page 20
